Eye on Employment: April 2018 Edition

The Eye on Employment is NWPB’s monthly breakdown of the latest data from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey. In this document, we will provide you with a summary of changes in local labour market indicators, provide comparisons to historical benchmarks, and show how seasonality affects employment in Niagara.

First, a foreword on our source: Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey or LFS. The LFS is a robust tool that provides us with a considerable amount of data. At its core, however, it exists to sort Canadians into one of three groups: people who are employed, people who are not employed but looking for work, and people who are not in the labour force. This is a people-focused survey, and the important thing to remember is that a count of people is not a count of jobs. People might do a job, either for an employer or through self-employment, but the LFS is counting the people, not the job. Bearing this in mind, let’s turn our eye toward employment.

Monthly and Yearly Overview

Month-over-month we can see 800 more people either working or looking for work. There were 2,200 fewer people working full-time between February 2018 and March 2018, and 900 more people working part-time. The change in full-time employment is significant, however it is a considerably smaller shift than what we observed in Feb-March 2017; therein, full-time employment decreased by 4,900 people. Moreover, we can see there were 3,300 more people working full-time in March of 2018 compared to March of 2017.

Niagara’s unemployment rate in March was up 1.0% over last month. The local labour market participation rate was up by 0.2%, and the employment rate was down 0.5%. Ideally, we want to see falling unemployment rates paired with increases in the employment and participation rate as that would mean more people are working while fewer people are looking for work.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the data in Table 1 are seasonally unadjusted figures. That means factors like holidays, expected employment slowdowns due to weather, and other factors that can be reasonably be predicted to influence employment are not accounted for in these data. Table 2 shows, however, shows what the labour force looks like when we adjust for seasonality.

Here, the month-over-month comparisons show 800 more people employed in Niagara. The unemployment rate increased by 0.4%, and the employment rate increased by 0.1%. This raises one obvious question: which of these data is correct, the adjusted or the unadjusted?

The answer is that both are equally valid. Both measures are essential tools to understanding labour force trends in Niagara. Our takeaway from comparing the two, given that the adjusted data show an increase of 800 employed individuals and the unadjusted data show a decrease of 1,400, should be that seasonality had an impact on Niagara in March of 2018.

The Youth Lens

LFS data also allows us a snapshot of youth (defined as people age 15 to 24) employment in Niagara. Once again these data do not account for seasonality.

Here we see 2,400 more youth working in March compared to February. There were 100 fewer youth working in a full-time capacity, and 2,400 more youth working in a part-time capacity. Note here that Statistics Canada rounds its figures to the nearest hundred, which is why we have a gain of 2,400, a loss of 100, and a net figure of 2,400. Round numbers can sometimes lead to unexpected and eccentric outcomes, however this does not imply any specific problem on the part of the data.

Though the youth unemployment rate increased by 2.2%, the participation rate surged with a 4.1% increase. The youth employment rate also increased by 2.5%. These data would certainly seem to suggest an overall increase in youth employment and youth searching for work. Astute readers will also note more youth employed in a full-time capacity in March of 2018 than there were in March of 2017. While there may be other factors in play, it is likely that March saw the post-secondary age youth workforce transitioning into their search for spring/summer employment.

Would you like to know more? NWPB is ready for your questions. Reach out to Mario De Divitiis (mario@niagaraworkforceboard.ca).